Day 3: How it Went

So, my day 3 fell on a Saturday. Not just any Saturday, but the last of my four days with my daughter before she would go to her fathers for four days. Saturday would also be the first of these four days that my mother would not have to work a full day and she wanted to do something more than just sit around the house or go to the local parks or reservoirs. So, she decided that we should go to the zoo. There is a zoo in Baltimore, but its costly to get in and not as nice as the free Washington D.C. zoo. So the plan was to go to the D.C. zoo. My mother worked a few hours early in the morning to knock that out of the way and I got up early and went to my daily doctors appointment and when we all met back up at the house we began to get ready for our trip. I thought about my meals and looked at my menu and it worked out that I didn't have a frozen meal on the menu for that day's lunch. I had the room temperature Rotini on the menu for that day. Perfect! I wasn't sure exactly where I was going to cook it and I imagined worst case scenario I could eat it as is, but I'm weird about food. I needed it cooked or I would imagine that it was raw and I'd think I was sick and it would be a huge dramatic bunch of nonsense! ;) So I packed these meal into a bag and threw some water bottles and bagged veggies into a cooler with ice and myself, my daughter, my mother and stepfather loaded into my mothers 300 and began the trip. 

Now let me tell you how this trip is supposed to go. Its about an hours drive from our home in Baltimore to the Washington D.C. zoo, which does have its own parking lot. So the plan was to hop in the car, drive to the zoo, park in the lot which lets you off right in the middle of the zoo and enjoy our day. Simple enough right? I wish. 

The drive to the zoo seemed to take forever. Having to stop at the local mall to pick up my contacts before we even got on the beltway didn't help. Once on the road my daughter suddenly began crying hysterically with her fingers in her mouth. Her doctor told us a day or so before she had four teeth coming in the back so we knew why she was crying, but we hadn't brought the Children's Tylenol! I forgot it! So we had to make another stop at a grocery store and get her some Tylenol. Fortunately, she loves her med med. Although she's at the age where she doesn't want to call it med med, she wants to call it medicine cos she's a big girl! It also happened that day was the day she turned 16 months old! 

Here is where things start to go really wrong. We get into D.C. and we get to the zoo and the freaking parking lot is closed! CLOSED! How are you going to close the national zoo's parking lot on a Saturday afternoon in the summer? So, we drove around for a while looking for a place to park but all the streets around the area were two hour parking unless you had a residential pass and this part of D.C. is strict on towing. We considered parking here but just loading everything up and walking back to the zoo would take more than twenty minutes. Two hours just was not going to cut it. 

Now everyone is cranky, my daughter in particular as she hasn't had a nap yet. The plan was for her to sleep in the car on the ride to the zoo but you try to get a 16 month old to follow a schedule and a plan! So as we're circling around and around I see the metro stop. I suggest we ride back out into the suburbs of D.C. which are in Maryland and park at one of the metro stops out there and ride the subway in. Everyone agrees this is probably going to be the best idea. So, my stepfather, who lived in the area for years and still works in the area, headed out to the closest metro stop with parking. However, once we get there, my daughter is asleep and she's been asleep for about three minutes. I'm not going to wake her up. Not only has she not napped yet, and not only is she teething and in pain, she also has a large red welt on her leg where she got her shots and its sore. My baby is in a lot of pain and just uncomfortable so there is no way I'm going to wake her up now that she's finally been able to fall asleep. 

Right about now everyone is agitated and grouchy and I say I have no problem with heading home, but I remember that this is the only full day my mother is going to have with my daughter and she wanted to do something with her so we really should try to make this work. I ask where the next metro stop is and my stepfather says there is one about twenty minutes out in Bethesda Maryland. Its headed in the direction of home and it has a large parking lot. If we ride out there it will give my daughter some time to get a nap in. That's what we decide to do. However on the way I realize I need to eat but still don't know where or how I'm going to heat it up. My mother suggests a 711 but my stepfather has no idea where one is so we pull up to the first gas station we see. My god send of a mother goes in and tells the clerk she needs to heat up a meal for her granddaughter and the guy says its okay so we manage to get the food cooked! This is about the only thing that goes right!

The ride takes about twenty five minutes and once we get there we find out the parking is free on the weekend which starts to put everyone in better moods. We load the coolers into the stroller and wake up my daughter. She is a different child at this point. She is rested and the Tylenol has kicked in and eased if not totally alleviated all her pains. She is the happy smiling angel she usually is. This of course puts everyone back into their happy places. That is until we get up to the train platform and see the gigantic signs posted everywhere:

NO SOUTHBOUND RUNNING TRAINS

FREE SHUTTLE BUSES

Seriously??? As if this should-have-taken-one-hour-but-has-taken-two-hour trip hasn't already worn all of our patience thin. A man in a bright yellow vest must see our faces. He asks us where we're going and explains that they are working on the tracks on the next three stops heading south. We'll have to take the free shuttle bus which is an express bus to the next metro stop where we can get on and get to the zoo. We head to the shuttle bus and climb aboard. First they tell us we have to break the stroller down but when the driver sees all the coolers and diaper bag in the back he kindly tells us not to worry about it just climb on. 

We are frustrated but its also my daughters first bus trip and she is loving it! She's sitting on my mothers lap, well sitting and standing, and her eyes are darting out the window and then to me and back. She has one of her fingers in her mouth and a sly smile on her face. We all begin to laugh when we realize what she must be thinking. She sees the bus is moving and she's not strapped into her car seat. She thinks she's getting away with something! She loves the bus ride! She's laughing the entire time and looking out the window and calling to me to sit on my lap. I take her and she's so happy she starts dancing for no apparent reason. Everyone (about ten people) on the bus laughs.

We reach our stop and unload the bus thanking the driver as we do. Now we're at the metro stop. We instinctively head towards the escalators, not looking for an elevator yet though we did find them later thank goodness, and head down. Before we can purchase tickets however I need to find a bathroom. I've been guzzling water since I woke up and just cannot wait until we reach the zoo. The metro stop we are at is connected to an indoor shopping plaza. So we head in for whats supposed to be a two minute stop. Those two minutes turns into almost twenty when my mother stops in McDonald's to get the baby some apple slices and a diet coke for herself. Then we're leaving and I realize I need to buy a bottle of non frozen water to melt my frozen bottles so we turn around again. 

Finally, we make it to the train. Only after of course, my stepfather doesn't remember how to find your fare and purchase your ticket. Yes he used to live and work in D.C., but he always had a car. I on the other hand used to spend a lot of time in D.C. and still knew how to work the whole system but my stepfather would not accept my help. Men. Once on the train everyone is smiling again as its my daughters first train ride and she loves looking out the windows at the lights flashing by. We're starting to feel better even though its taken another hour to get to where we are. We reach our stop and begin walking towards the zoo, its about a three quarter of a mile walk to the entrance which though I wasn't planning on this exercise, I'm happy to have it thrown in front of me.

Finally we reach the zoo and guess what? Yup, you guessed it: the parking lot is open! I'm not even going to address this with a comment because it's going to set me off. 

We stopped at the entrance to take pictures of my daughter sitting on top of the gigantic ZOO sign in front of the entrance and head on in excited to see some animals! After taking more than three hours to get there, after planes, trains and automobiles, after everyone being grouchy and aggravated and short tempered, after promising the baby we were getting out of the car in two minutes for an hour straight - we finally get to see some animals! Finally this day is going to get good right? Wrong. We saw almost nothing. Half of the zoo was under construction. The other half of the zoo, none of the animals were in their pens. I don't know if it was feeding time or if because it was after three in the afternoon and so hot they had retreated to indoor environments. I don't know. I know that my mother was upset which made me very upset. 

We saw one leopard who was eighty percent hidden by a bush and too far out of sight for my daughter see; one small red panda the size of a house cat; some otters which my daughter really did enjoy; the indoor panda exhibit; the indoor ape exhibit; and two ponies. Horses are my daughters favorite animal however and she did not want to leave these two "horsies". She was amazed and it was adorable. 

So the zoo was crowded and hot. It had taken us three hours to get there. Everything was under construction. None of the animals were around. We walked all through the zoo for about an hour. My mother had been so excited for my daughter to see elephants, tigers, lions, zebras, giraffes and other large animals and we didn't see any of them. I felt so bad that my mother was so let down after such a long day. Such a long day and we still had to make the hour long trip back to the car!

After an hour in the zoo my mother decides its time to go. I agree with her. We're both exhausted and upset. My daughter has refused to ride in the stroller the entire day so one of us has carried her and one of us has pushed the heavy stroller with two diapers and a diaper bag in it. Yes we're exhausted. And of course, to leave the zoo we have to hike up an almost ridiculously steep for being in a zoo hill to the exit. A hill that is a half a mile long. Halfway up the hill I was tempted to tell my stepfather to go get the car and I'd sit right at the zoo entrance and wait! That's not a joke. I really was thinking that was what was going to happen.

But I thought of my JC plan. I thought how the exercise was going to be so good for me. I thought about exactly how much exercise I would end up doing that day and how much water I was drinking and I just pushed myself. We walked back to the metro stop and took the subway to the closed station and got on the shuttle bus and finally after more than hour made it back to the car. I wanted to kiss the car when I saw it

On the ride home my daughter fell asleep almost instantaneously and I wasn't far behind her. As I drifted off I thought about how the day had gone. I had done really well. I was proud of myself. I stuck to my diet with my lunch and didn't get out of control with subbing out my breakfast meal because lets face it, I can eat about a ton of that Special K Red Berry cereal. In the zoo when my family was buying sodas and frozen lemonade sticks I stuck to my bottles of water. I did however get an order of Dip N Dots which I'm going to address at the end of this post. Overall, I had a good day. I had gotten in a ton of walking which wasn't planned and was feeling exhausted in that good over worked kind of way. 

Needless to say the ride home was much quicker than the trip to the zoo. In fact it seemed to only take ten minutes since I fell asleep with my daughter. Once home we were all starving and headed inside to fix our dinners. I was glad to have something I enjoyed for dinner, the fish and chips and as I mentioned in my meal review, it tasted good out of the toaster oven. As I also mentioned in my meal plan, I was scheduled to have cookies for desert but after that day I just wanted the cheesecake! lol So I went for it. Let me tell you that cheesecake with those strawberries - oh my god! Heaven on a spoon! 

Overall it was a long day and though their were some major set backs, it was something we were able to laugh about once we got home and my mother did get to spend the entire day with my daughter. We told my baby brother about our day and all got a good chuckle out of it. By the way, when I saw baby brother, I mean my 22 year old brother. He's always going to be a baby to me! After dinner we gave the baby a bath and all climbed into my mothers bed to read bedtime stories. We all fell asleep pretty quickly too, which is why I wasn't able to blog about this day the day of. 

Now let me address the Dip N Dot incident. I'm not going to lie or avoid talking about it. I was hot and grumpy and I wanted it. I wouldn't say that I exactly broke down, because I didn't resist too hard. I know how hard I've been following my plan and I know how serious I am about losing weight this time. Its not that everything bad to eat that I see is calling out to me, in fact none of it is. I'm not having a hard time with any kind of cravings at all. In fact there are two unopened cases of regular soda in my bedroom, leftover from before I started the diet. They don't tempt me at all. They don't make me weak at all. I just don't want them. I honestly don't. I want to lose this weight. I am ready to lose this weight.

Where as before when I dieted the bad food was always calling out to me and I was always hiding from it I don't feel that way now. On diets of the past once I would have something bad, like a cup of Dip N Dots, that was the end of my diet. I would either feel so guilty I'd just stop the diet altogether or I'd say to myself, well I've ruined this day I'll start again tomorrow. It was always something. I just don't feel that way now. If I have something like a cup of Dip N Dots then I have it. I'm not saying its okay to eat that kind of food all day long because it's not. But if once a week or once every two weeks I find myself in a situation like I did this day, where I'm at the zoo and there's a cart, I'm not going to beat myself up for eating it. Its not like it used to be where that would be the end of my diet.

Its also because I'm not exactly looking at this like a diet. This isn't a temporary plan I'm on to dump this weight and then go back to how I was eating. The word diet for me implies short term or even if its a long term diet, it just means not forever. The way I see my JC plan is changing the way I eat and live forever. I have on intention of never having ice cream or sweets again. I do intend on having healthy portions and not three times a day. 

Is any of this making sense? lol I know many people are going to say this is wrong and I need to stay on the plan bite for bite and maybe you're right - for you. I just am not going to beat myself up for this. I did it, its done, it didn't lead to a binge or the end of my diet or anything of the sort. It was just right for me that moment.